I don’t usually have time to work on Wednesdays, but my schedule was completely different yesterday so I was able to work for about 90 minutes. Funnily enough, those 90 minutes happened to fall during the absolute hottest time of the day, when the temperature felt like 118 degrees!! But I was determined to get something done and set my sights on finishing the grout on the left side of the door and getting it ready for primer and paint.
When I left you yesterday, the stone on this side looked like this…
This is what the mortar turned out to be (plus some revisions to the two bottom stones)…
It looks darker than the rest of the mortar because it was still a little wet when I took the photo, and it hasn’t been painted. But once it’s there, it fits in perfectly.
Of course I still need to address the problem above the door, but many of you have suggested adding a small screen or something similar over the door to hide the uneven stone problem. And that reminded me that I had created a model of this door with a grille using ChatGPT a while back. That’s what it gave me. Needless to say, this picture didn’t convince me.
At some point I had ChatGPT create this model too. It was better, but the trellis (or is that a pergola?) is way too high. I don’t have enough space for that. Changes were also made to the door. At the time, I didn’t think my door could ever look so clean and beautiful because of the Hardie trim. See how the door is paneled? My door didn’t have that. That’s one of the reasons I hated that Hardie ornament on the door to begin with.
But I was curious to see what it would look like with the new cast stone replacing the Hardie trim. So I edited the image above a bit using my own photo editing program to cover the right side of the door with the stone. This is just a photo edit, so the finished stone on the right won’t look exactly like this, but it’s close. I also finished the stone above the door to make it look more like what I hope it will look like when I’m done.
And then I asked ChatGPT to put a small white grid over the door. This time I provided an image of the grid I wanted, rather than leaving ChatGPT to its own devices to create a grid of its own “imagination”. I have no idea why the grille wasn’t placed centrally on the door or why this created more space above the door than there actually is, but it still gives us a good idea of what this door would look like with a small white grille.
I think this is PERFECT! Well, yes, that idea is perfect. I would of course center it and move it up so it fits just above the bricks above the door. And since there is very little space there, the stones over the door would not be visible at all with a trellis there. But isn’t that sweet?
I also think it’s perfect because I’ve been meaning to build a trellis over the breakfast room windows for a long time. And you all know how I love continuity. I think it would be nice to have trellises in both of these areas.
Now I only have one question left. How on earth do I get the dark blue of the shutters to this side of the house? The only thing I can think of is to add large dark blue planters (once I build the steps and start landscaping). But if you have other ideas, I’d love to hear them!
